Grease Lightning
by F.A. Star Hawk
Summary: Kotarou is a hard person to shop for, but all the trouble Akaba went through to find him a good present turns out to be worth it in the end. One-shot. Hints of Akaba/Kotarou.


FASH: Today is Kotarou's birthday and what better way to celebrate than by writing him something? Because I can totally see Kotarou watching Grease and thinking it was cool.

Disclaimer: Not yet.

""-speech

''-thoughts

It was at times like this Akaba wondered why he even tried, it wasn't like this was expected of him and he got the feeling that even if he got Kotarou the best present even the other boy would think less of it because of who he got it from.

Kotarou hadn't even bothered telling him it was going to be his birthday soon, he'd only overheard him telling Juri that her present to him could be a date.

Juri, as usual, had turned him down, thank goodness.

"Fuu..." Akaba let his eyes trail around the store he'd wandered into, he'd been traversing the mall all day, trying to keep away from stores he personally liked thus Kotarou would vehemently object to liking, and so far he'd had no luck in finding a present.

But certainly he could find something for Kotarou in a movie store, or at least he hoped he could, otherwise this would turn out to be more troublesome than it ought to be.

'I should have asked Juri about this.'

He felt the eyes sizing him up before one of the workers walked in front of him and paused, asking a little too nicely if there was anything she could help him with while fluttering her eyelashes.

Normally he would have ignored the offer for help, preferring to do things the independent way, but damn, Kotarou was turning out to be hard to buy for.

"I'm looking for a gift for my friend, but I'm not sure what genre he likes."

"Well, what is he like? Does he have any hobbies?"

Akaba tapped his lips in thought. "He combs his hair a lot," the red head began, vaguely wondering if he should just buy Kotarou a comb and get this shopping trip over with. "he has some strange slang," because saying that didn't make him a hypocrite at all, "and he plays football, he's great at kicking."

The girl gave him a blank look for a moment before a thoughtful look came over her face.

"Does he like oldies music?"

"I suppose..." Kotarou certainly didn't seem to like any of the newer stuff Akaba attempted to serenade him with.

"Then I think I know just the thing for him!" She dashed over to the other side of the store to grab something before dashing back to Akaba.

The red head gave the DVD case she was holding a thorough once over, eyebrows raising a bit in skepticism.

"Grease?"

"I know it's some old, American musical, but as soon as you mentioned the combing his hair a lot thing this was all I could think about."

Akaba pulled the case from her hands and flipped it over to read the symphysis.

'Well, it sort of looks like something Kotarou might be interested in.' And he hadn't been able to find anything else so far.

"I'll take it."

The look on Kotarou's face when Akaba had elegantly presented the wrapped parcel to him in the locker room after practice was enough to make Akaba smirk and even Kotarou's semi-angry sputtering that he didn't want anything from Akaba wasn't enough to make the quirk of his lips disappear.

Besides, it was easy to see that Kotarou was curious about what Akaba could have gotten him. His eyes never strayed away from the little package for too long and his fingers twitched ever so often, itching to tear away the deep purple wrapping paper.

"Well, if you're so adverse to the thought of receiving a present from me of all people..." Akaba began softly and Kotarou twitched. "And to think I went through such a hard time getting you something I thought you'd like. You're not an easy person to shop for, you know."

"Stop fooling around, are you going to give it to me or not?" Kotarou asked uneasily and Akaba clucked his tongue.

"Not even so much as a please, oh well, I suppose I can forgive your lack of manners since you are the birthday boy." Akaba handed the package over, his smirk turning into a genuine smile when Kotarou muttered 'thanks' before ripping into the wrapping paper.

He stared at the unveiled DVD case for a long while before slowly raising his eyes up to meet Akaba's.

"You got me a musical? An American musical from a couple decades ago?"

"Indeed I did."

Kotarou stared at him for a little while longer before determinedly taking hold of Akaba's hand and dragging him out of the change room.

"Well, Julie refused to give me a birthday date so I've got nothing else to do tonight, and there's no way someone as smart as me should be home watching a movie _alone_ on their birthday, so if you've got any plans you'd better cancel them."

"Of course, anything for the birthday boy." Akaba replied smoothy, his even tone easily camouflaging his surprise.

'This is going rather swell.'

He'd have to get Kotarou a movie every year from now on.


End file.
